South-African policy-makers cant hide their worries about Donald Trump coming back to power. During his time as president (around 5 years ago) high-tariffs damaged the rand: making trade with US harder than ever
The African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits might disappear for South-Africa — both parties in US agree on this because SA blocks US meat imports to help local farmers. Last summer things got worse when the US said SA gave weapons to Russia; this made the rand drop big-time (and it fell again when people thought a attack on Trump would make him more popular)
The new SA government includes pro-Israel Democratic Alliance party — this might help talk business with Trump if he wins. However local politicians dont feel sure about this: “its going to be bad news for South-Africas trade access through AGOA‚“ as former DA boss Tony Leon explains on a podcast
Some people see how Trump connects to SA right-wing past; four big Trump supporters (including tech-boss Elon Musk) came from apartheid-time SA. Both Musk and Trump made SA leaders mad when they spread wrong info about white farmers deaths
Southern Africa under apartheid offered an extreme version of some of the main themes of American life today
US-SA relations stayed same for about 10 years; but SAʼs choice to spend money on Israel genocide case might make things worse between these countries